An Unbeliever's Prayer.

I'm reading, "The Unlikely Disciple", by Kevin Roose. He is a 19 year old liberal who doesn't believe in God and decides to attend Liberty College, which was established by Jerry Falwell, for one semester. He wants to go with an open mind and write about the experience. He expects to dislike the students and faculty.

It is a fascinating book. He learns that he really likes most of the people there. He doesn't agree with most of their beliefs but he wants to understand them. There is so much to the book that I can't do it justice here, but I wanted to share the bit he wrote about prayer. He says the students pray at the drop of a hat. They pray about everything and for everyone. He finally decides to pray on his own and see what happens. He starts by praying for everyone he knows and this is what happens:

"First, all my problems snap into perspective. Compared to a girl whose step-father was in a mine accident or an old lady having her hip replaced, nothing in my life seems all that pressing. Instead of obsessing over the History of Life quiz I bombed or the parking ticket I got, I'm focusing more and more on people with real hardships. I put myself in the shoes of the guy in my hall who just totaled his car on the freeway or my aunt Cindy, whose house in California just burned down. Eventually, I go back to worrying about my tiny problems - I can't help it - but for those thirty minutes (of prayer) I'm at least going through the motions of compassion.

Second, the compassion I dig up during those thirty minutes sometimes carries over to the rest of my day."

Kevin finds himself writing a letter to a friend at his former university consoling him because he was going through a hard time. His friend wrote back and said the letter brought tears to his eyes and lifted his spirits. Kevin says he felt so good afterwards - like he was "glowing" - and spent the next hours doing small acts of kindness and being more friendly.

I haven't finished reading the book yet and I am hoping for him to ask God into his life, but even if he doesn't make that step yet, he has certainly learned a lot about God and Christians.

The one major negative in his experience has been the way people talk about homosexuals. Gay people are people God loves as he loves everyone and the disrespect and insults aimed at these souls is terrible at the university. That being said, I have to say my ideas of far-right Christians has changed. They are, for the most part, terrific people and loving Christians. This book showed me once again how I should never, ever judge people. That is not my job and I usually get it wrong.